LOSSES AND DAMAGES FROM CLIMATE CHANGE
Reducing and managing the risks of losses and damages from climate change The impacts of climate change on the Earth system are today clear and unequivocal. They include slow-onset changes and increases in the severity and frequency of some extreme weather events. The risk that large-scale, irreversible changes in the climate system, so-called tipping points, are or will be crossed, is also increasing. Unchecked, climate change impacts have the potential to cause increasingly severe economic and social impacts. Action on climate change falls far short from what is needed to limit global average temperature increase to the goals of the Paris Agreement. The complexity and pace of change is stretching the ability of human and natural systems to manage the adverse impacts of climate change, leading to losses and damages and threatening the sustainability of human and natural systems for decades to come. At risk are the lives and livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people, development gains and economic prosperity. Least Developed Countries and Small Island Developing States are disproportionately affected due to their geographic locations and physical characteristics as well as their financial, technical, and societal capacity to mitigate and adapt to the adverse impacts of climate change. Within countries, groups marginalised by, for example, their gender, race, age, disability or class identities are particularly at risk.
Objective The report will provide an overview of the key scientific issues relevant to the understanding of the physical and socio-economic impacts from climate change, with the goal to inform and spur climate action. It will be organised around six chapters, which will focus on characterising climate risks and underlying uncertainties to then explore, the role of domestic and international policy, finance and technology in reducing and managing the risks of losses and damages from climate change.
Report structure Losses and damages from climate change: a critical moment for action ____ Types of uncertainties and understanding of risks of losses and damages ____ Climate change impacts and their cascading effects: implications for losses and damages ____ Policy, governance and institutions for reducing and managing losses and damage ____ Finance and financial risks in the face of growing losses and damages ____ Technology for reducing and managing losses and damages ____